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The Alberto Giacometti Foundation is the leading museum collection of works by the Swiss sculptor, painter and graphic artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966).

It was established in 1965 in Zurich by a group of art-lovers including Hans C. Bechtler who had acquired the Giacometti works in the possession of Pittsburgh industrialist G. David Thompson. Thompson had collected a series of key sculptures from the artist’s avant-garde period (1925 to 1934) along with examples of most of his major works from 1947 to 1950, the greatest flowering of his creativity. Giacometti himself contributed some later works of his own, consisting of a group of drawings and several paintings, and in 2006 Bruno and Odette Giacometti presented the Foundation with 75 plasters and 15 bronzes from the artist’s estate.

Today the Foundation holds 170 sculptures, 20 paintings, 80 drawings, 23 sketchbooks, 39 books containing marginalia, and prints, drawn from Alberto Giacometti’s entire creative life, from his earliest efforts to his very last, reflecting every major aspect of his work and affording an insight into numerous surprising facets of his oeuvre.